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Monday, January 30, 2012

Week 66: Cafe Rio chicken and a large British guy

Email conversation between AJ and his Dad through ldsmail.net. We started chatting about 8:30 p.m. Utah time (11:30 a.m. Monday for AJ).

AJ: Hey, whats up?

DAD: Believe it or not, we are still at Grandma's.

AJ: Kinda late isnt it?

DAD: We're on our way home now, it's been a fun night. We are taking Eldon to Bluff

Street to drop them off at their car. What's up with you?

AJ and the gang in the mission home at Christmas.

AJ:Not too much. How's the fam? DAD: Everyone is good and getting over the sickness. Oh and mom and the boys had EFY Saturday. They really enjoyed it. They said there were some really good speakers, they were funny and spiritual.

AJ: Cool beans. We taught a giant, fat, rich British mechanical engineer this week on splits. He doesn't believe in Jesus Christ. He said he is a very faithless man. But he did give us good food. And he is gonna build an apartment for the mission to rent for senior couples. We taught him on Tuesday and supposedly he was going to meet with Pres. Carlos on Friday. He was a weird dude. I guess he lived in Saudia Arabia in like a rich person's palace ... I don't know. Like rich people just live there and everything is free and they have outrageously huge salaries and just work. Anyway, yeah, weird dude.

DAD: Was there any good reason to teach him? I guess there is hope for everyone, but seems like a waste of time.

AJ: Well I was on splits with Elder McGuffin from Nebraska. Anyway, he said he had never taught him before. So we thought we would give it a try. It was getting kinda late anyway and we didn't have any other appointments. The British dude was like "I am a lost cause but if you want to, you can teach to me." haha. I don't know, I guess he feeds them all the time. He loves the church and loves the missionaries. Might as well teach him, I guess, if he feeds them. He is super nice dude.

DAD: So are you happy and healthy otherwise?

AJ: I've had a nasty cold but it seems to be dying away. Things are good.

DAD: Well it seems we have had cold or flu (or both) go through everyone in the family, including the old folks. BTW, we are home now. Oh, and your mom thinks it's funny that Griffin and McGuffin went on splits. Especially with your old nickname, Muffin!DAD: Haha – I forgot about that – haha.

AJ: Is there any way to make the Cafe Rio chicken with a gas stove, rice cooker, microwave or toaster oven?

DAD: Yeah, you can boil the chicken on a stove top. Do you have salsa and brown sugar? It's really pretty easy. I make it without a recipe.

AJ: I can make salsa and brown sugar is cheap. What do you do? Just boil chicken then what?

DAD: Just take raw chicken, add a cup of salsa, a cup of brown sugar and about a half cup of water and boil it until the sauce thickens and the chicken is done, then add rice and black beans and cheese, if you have them, on a tortilla. You want to boil the chicken long enough that it absorbs the flavors and gets tender.

AJ: Can you do it with pork too?

DAD: Pork would work, maybe need to boil a little longer.

AJ: Oh, alrighty. Well we are headed out. love you!!!

DAD: Love you too son. Keep your chin up!WEEKLY LETTER

Elders Griffin and Rausa at the falls in Paddad.

Dear Family,

Happy February! So another fast good week has gone by. I was just thinking about my mission. By the way it's been incredibly unbelievably fast and awesome. I have absolutely loved my mission, even the hard parts and gross parts and yucky food parts – I have seen that it has all been for a reason, sometimes just to develop patience, hehe. The mission is definitely the greatest 2 years ever. Dallas and Bryce get ready for it – it's gonna be great!

Just before he left Ramon, AJ had the local baker make
him a lemon meringue pie. Yummy!

So Elder Rausa shared this cool scripture the other day to a less active family. In 2 Nephi 9:40 on the last line it says, "To be spiritually minded is life eternal." So that's what it is really about. Everything starts in the thoughts and if we conquer the mind the rest will follow. Anyway food for thought.

This Sunday, President and Sister Carlos came to our Sacrament meeting. I am not really sure why, but they ended up speaking and it was pretty cool. Sister Carlos talked about the importance of reading scriptures as a family. She said it's great to read the Book of Mormon, but what is even better is to go through the scriptures by stories and help them come alive for the kids. President talked about the duty of every member to help in the rescue of souls.

So the cool family we started teaching last week, The Gabudlon family is doing great. We taught them about temples this week and they are super excited to someday have a chance to go there. We were only able to teach them once this last week but we should be able to teach some more this coming week.

This week we have taught a lot of less actives and stuff and we haven't had too much success. This week, none of our investigators came to church, but a member brought her husband to church and we taught them yesterday and a youth brought her cousin and we were able to teach her as well.

We are kind of in the planting process right now, but life is good. I don't really have any stories to tell right now... sorry. Next week I'll try to write longer. I kind of ran out time.

Love you a ton. And I know the Church is true and I am thankful for great parents and for blessings of the gospel and especially that we are an eternal family. We aren't perfect, but we are all trying and we all love each other and the Savior.

About Me

Contact Information

You type a letter and they print it and ship it to him. Takes about 2 weeks. Cool, eh?! He's asking for letters so please write!

AJ has been called to the Philippines, Cauayan (sounds like Hawaiian with a "C") Mission. He left the MTC on December 29, 2010. This blog will be updated weekly with AJ's letters by AJ's Mom! We hope you will enjoy reading about his experiences as a Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!